Help please with to Tokyo with 2 x 241 and 2 x cabin upgrade vouchers

[confusednewbie]

Hello

I would be grateful for some expert assistance. I’ve read so many post on these forums that I’ve now confused myself!

Between my wife and I, we have the following:

2 x 241 Amex vouchers
2 x Barclaycard upgrade vouchers
~450000 Avios

We want to take 2 adults, 1 teen and 1 child to Japan next summer for 2 weeks ideally leaving LHR at the end of July due to school holiday dates.

Which is the best booking scenario? I think I need to book the outbound flights in 2 bookings (1 adult + 1 kid each booking) at T-355 days but I am confused as to which combination of vouchers to use and how
/when to book the return to minimise the taxes that we pay.

Any advice would be most appreciated. Thanks.

[Thegasman]

Depends on how often you generate Amex 241s & what your travel plans are like normally. Barclays vouchers are a bit useless for short haul so I’d use them long haul & save the Amex for a later date unless you can only get availability using Amex 241.

Japan is a tricky redemption these days but July is about as low season as it gets so maybe it won’t be a problem.

It used to be significantly cheaper booking return leg online as a one way & then calling to get voucher applied & half the Avios back but no recalculation of fees vs calling up to book return leg when they would recalculate fees as if it was a return booking. I’m pretty sure that’s gone out the window with long haul RFS. Airlines were also permitted to start charging carrier surcharges ex Japan during COVID so the cost saving had already narrowed significantly anyway.

[NorthernLass]

Have a look at the articles and threads on here about using the voucher, and also booking the return at T-355. Seats are currently released up to July 23rd – you don’t say which cabin you want to travel in, however, CW seems to still be being snapped up on release, and you’ll probably only get 2 PE seats released on each flight.

This means you will need to be on the ball at 1 am the day your seats are released – there is a very long thread about how to maximise your chances of success in the BAEC section on here.

Otherwise you can wait and see if the voucher opens up more availability as time goes on, or try booking from one of the regions.

[paulthetaxman]

One thing to factor in will be heat and humidity. I’m in Hong Kong now and whilst temperature is 32 c it feels like high 40s. It’s very hard walking around and been difficult to do things. So have a think about that.